Art Therapy - An Evening with My Van Goghs

Today was a day.  There's a lot going on in "grown up life" that we haven't shared with our children right now but I know they can see and feel the extra stress and tension come out through us, try as we might to prevent or hide it.  

In an effort to righten our day and my distracted mommy brain that is pulled in many directions I researched and planned an afternoon art project for the children.

First off, I take NO CREDIT for this project turning out well.  But aren't they beautiful?

The art work is designed after Vincent Van Gogh's famous Sunflowers painting.  We got out our trusty Usborne Famous Paintings book to look at his painting before we began!

I found Mr. P's YouTube channel a few nights ago and fell in love with his direct and simple way of explaining the process of art to his students.  The projects are a bit random but almost all are doable after you've laid in a few supplies.  If you are looking for some direction in art education for your children look him up.  

We used these 2 videos:

We used: thick construction paper, liquid watercolor, oil pastels, sharpie marker, pencil, scissors.

I had planned on doing the Part 1 video today and Part 2 tomorrow but the kids begged to complete their projects and I could find no real reason not to.  So for 120 minutes straight they "arted."  And it was good....

Mr. P showed the kids how to make a straight line 1/3 of the way from the bottom of their paper.  They he explained that the top would be the "wall" in the picture and the bottom would be the "table."  They got to choose their colors for the wall and table...

For the "wall" Natalee chose yellow with a drop of green and Xavier chose yellow with a drop of blue....which made me chuckle because it essentially became the same color.  

He taught them that they were laying a "watercolor wash" on their paper.  We didn't have quite the same supplies as he does in the video but we do have these great liquid water colors that I think Lauren got Natalee for Christmas and they worked brilliantly.  Such vibrant colors!

 

For the "table" Xavier chose red with a drop of blue and Natalee chose yellow with a drop of red.  

We set our water color washes to the side to dry and moved on to the next step.  Mr. P taught the children that this was a "multimedia" piece because they were using more than one art item (paint, pastels, etc.)

The next step was to draw a 3-4 lined design and color it in a pattern with oil pastels.  When I originally looked for a project for the children to do I wanted one with oil pastels because I bought them a set while Mike and I were at the NICHE homeschool conference and I hadn't yet used them.  There was another great project of Mr. P's involving making mountain landscapes that I had planned to do (to tie in with Science) but I didn't realize it used chalk pastels and I had oil so I had to choose something else.  Chalk pastels are now on my "wish list."

Something I have to kind of push my children with is to be different from one another.  We have raised these two sort of like twins and they tend to do what the other does naturally, without much thought to how they might like to do it themselves.  I couldn't get them past both doing zig-zag lines but they did choose different colors for their patterns (because we only had one set of oil pastels!).

Mr. P showed the children how to blend and smooth the pastels with their fingers.

The next step was to fold this paper, draw an "s" type figure and cut it out symmetrically to make the vase.  I won't lie - the "s" figure tripped them up and after attempting to draw it several times I helped at their requests.  No need to let it be super frustrating.  They cut on their own.

Now we have vases!!

On to the sunflowers!

I LOVED how Mr. P showed the kids how to make sunflowers.  First a "sun."  A circle (he gave examples of too small, too large, and just right), then straight rays out, then two lines coming one off each side of the "ray" to make a petal.  I did have the kids use pencil so they could erase without frustration and I traced their pencil lines with sharpie.  I wasn't sure how else to do it so they could try again and not get frustrated if they made a mistake.  Maybe my kids are the only ones who struggle with frustration at it not being how they intended? 

I was their cheerleader and kept my hands back.  Natalee did ask for help and I told her I'd coach her but not draw for her.  She completed both her sunflowers before Xavier was ready to go to the next step so I encouraged her to follow Mr. P's instructions on putting in a 2nd row of petals and she was very pleased with out it turned out!

 

Mr. P instructed the children to not just use yellow for all their petals.  He showed them instead how to lay 2-3 colors on each petal with oil pastel and blend them together with your finger.  

Cutting out the sunflowers was the most frustrating part of the project for the kids, however I refused to let myself take over.  I coached and cheered and fixed supper while they did it and they were so close to finishing that they didn't want to give up so they persevered.  There may or may not be some tape on the back of the flowers in a couple of places holding together severed petals but they did it all themselves and I'm pleased with their efforts!

After the cutting we only had assembly and stem drawing left!

Beautiful...both the time spent working and the results!

 Sunflowers, Xavier, age 5

 Sunflowers, Natalee, age 6 1/2

 

Now, tell me, how would you display these?  My sister gave me a set of those great frames that open and you pop in your kids' art work.  However in anticipation of moving 2 years ago I packed them up.  Grr.  I know where they are but do I go get them out or find another method?  So, where and how would YOU display these beauties?

 

OH!  And Ameliya wasn't neglected.  She got to Play-Doh...

 Then she colored...

And then she took a nap. ;)